


He Had a Killer Muse

by zetsubonna



Series: On Va Voir [12]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, M/M, Outing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 19:54:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2122638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubonna/pseuds/zetsubonna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anonymous said:<br/>steve as jc leyendecker and bucky as charles beach WHOSE HANDSOME FACE AND SCULPTED BODY SERVE AS STEVE'S MODEL FOR THE INFAMOUS ARROW COLLAR MAN</p><p>Oh, fuck you. I said: no research, no betas. YOU HAD ONE JOB, ANON.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Had a Killer Muse

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [He Had a Killer Muse](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806208) by [finesea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finesea/pseuds/finesea)



It was embarrassing how long history took to put together  _SG Rogers_ ,  _commercial artist_  with  _Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America_. It was even more embarrassing that those stupid goddamn comic books had made it so almost nobody realized until the fortieth anniversary of Captain America’s death and the publication of his private collection of sketchbooks that  _Bucky Barnes_  was not, in fact, an innocent, virginal teenage mascot turned soldier, but rather, the  _goddamn Arrow Collar Man_ and a sniper with a confirmed kill count the authorities would not put a solid number on, just the quiet pronunciation that it was unusually high. 

Scholars went nuts. Rebecca, Rick, Jack and Peggy had waited forty years to publish the books for  _exactly_  that reason: it was kind of hard to deny that Captain America had been in a homosexual relationship when he’d drawn his lover  _so many times_  and sold the images in  _so many places_ that it was fucking impossible to hide them all. They couldn’t put out a single page of proof, either, not while Bucky’s parents were alive, their father had been in denial about as deep as Joe McCarthy and the rest of the right wingers.

Rick was the first to, in an interview, draw the parallel between Steve Rogers and Alan Turing, and shit, did people  _dislike_  that.

"Look," Rick said in the fourth interview, this time with Barbara Walters, "I know we’re all in love with this portrayal of ourselves as the Greatest Generation, but there were some ugly things going on in our time. Their relationship was  _illegal_. They were in love and  _it was a felony_. I know the story about how Steve was chosen to become Captain America in the first place, how he demonstrated courage and righteousness and all that, but do you really think any of it would have mattered even a little bit if they’d known he was  _queer_? My brother, too. They’d have been blue carded out, sent home and blacklisted for at least twenty years. They had a hard enough time growing up Catholic in Brooklyn without drawing attention to the elephant in the room.”

"You must acknowledge, I believe," Peggy said in her own subsequent interview with Dan Rather, "Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes were not activists, they were men of action. They kept a humble apartment with their advertising money, they were never extravagant. They didn’t campaign for the privilege of serving openly, they served quietly, but with distinction. They brought in the best people wherever they could, integrating the SSR Strike Team years ahead of the rest of the American military, keeping WAC advisers and myself at or above the rank of the men we served with, treating us with the utmost respect. They were completely ahead of their time."

***  
It was not Fury, Hill or Coulson’s idea for Steve to talk to the press. They tried to keep him as insulated as possible. After all, he’d just come back from the dead, he didn’t need to know right away that he’d come back  _after being outed_.

It was inevitable, though. He  _did_  have access to the Internet.

"I’m not  _gay_ ,” he complained, loudly, crossing his arms.

"I know you’re not," Agent Rivers said, cringing a little.

"I’m  _bisexual_ ,” Steve added, rolling his eyes. “I can’t stay mad at Peggy, I really can’t, but it would have been nice if she’d told the part of the truth where  _she was culpable_. She didn’t mention the part where she was the model for the bombshell girl I put on Howard’s plane, did she?”

"Of course not," Rivers sighed. SHIELD PR was not the most fun part of his job.

"Can we just put that in a press release?" Steve asked, raising an eyebrow. "Can we say, ‘Captain America is polyamorous, bisexual, and doesn’t see why it’s anybody’s business’?"

"We can try?" Rivers said.

It didn’t work.

***

Bucky took it better.

"Look, Stevie," he said, flipping through the  _nice_  book, the one where the original sketches had been perfectly preserved in all their dusty, pencil-marked glory for all the world to see, “It ain’t so bad.”

"How isn’t it?" Steve demanded. "First of all, those sketches were  _private_. I never intended to sell  _any_  of them, the style I used for the ads was completely different.”

"They’re good, though," Bucky said, though he didn’t put enough force behind it to actually calm Steve down, because listening to him rail without coughing hadn’t yet lost its appeal. "They’re  _really_  good. I mean, just the way you did my beard and the top of my ass- you are fuckin’ fascinated with my ass, by the way, I always thought it was my mouth or my neck, but you drew my ass like a hundred times more-“

"Fuck your ass!" Steve groaned, exasperated. "Look, I drew your  _neck_ because we were advertising  _collars_ , and I like your  _hair_  but it is shit to draw when it’s not slicked back and  _hands_  are the devil and we’ve had this conversation before.”

"We haven’t had it in seventy years," Bucky pointed at Steve with a cookie before shoving it into his mouth and talking around it. "I was your muse and you were way more responsible for keeping your half of the food on the table and medicine in the cabinet than anybody thought. It ain’t bad, baby doll, that’s all I’m saying."

"You only ‘baby doll’ me when you’re being condescending," Steve huffed.

"Or when I’m horny," Bucky agreed. "But I’m being condescending right now. You wanna call the kids and rail at them for a couple hours about outing us, you’re welcome to it, but you’ll really have to yell, Jack’s deaf as a post and Becky and Ricky are dead."

Steve groaned. “Your goddamn family.”

"Look," Bucky said, smiling at him. "They loved you. They were proud of you. They meant well. If we  _were_  dead, you’d have wanted people to know anyway. You’re kind of a dipshit like that. You believe in standing for things. It’s one of your more endearing flaws. Just embrace being a pillar of the queer community and  _go on about your day_ , Cap.”

Steve kissed Bucky’s hair, still grumbling. “Whatever.”

It worked.


End file.
